A new client for a couple of Honeybee sanctuaries asked us to inspect her hives and evaluate them to sell. What we found is very typical of abandoned and neglected hives.
If they bought the hives for $600 for 12 hives they still got a good deal in equipment alone . Make splits in the spring and grow a few more hives. Good video thank you.
In the past six months or so, I have been drawn to watching bee videos. i find it fascinating and therapeutic to watch. We live in a village in rural France. We have friends that are beekeepers. Their garden is about an acre. They have 27 hives there. Others in different spots around the village. They also keep some in a wood 20 miles or so away. In total I believe they have 100-120 hives. They produce lovely honey (it's a business for them). Until we visited their home, I hadn't realised that different honey was produced at different times in the year. It had just not occurred to me. They probably have about 8-10 different types of honey they sell, including Dandelion, Chestnut, Rape, Sunflower, Spring Flowers, Summer Flowers. I wasn't aware the bees would forage as far as 10 miles from the hive. Our friends said it was about 3 miles, but I suppose it depends upon the quantity and quality of pollen and nectar available. Many people here have fruit trees in their gardens. We have 4 types of plum, 3 cherry, 4 apple, a peach that doesn't do well, plus a lime or linden tree which is smothered in flowers every year and many thousands of bees. That's without the oak, silver birch and many shrubs all in half an acre. I'm seriously thinking about bee keeping, although not until we get settled as we are looking to move.
Sounds like you are already there. 6 years ago I discovered beekeeping. I would have never guessed then it would be my profession. The bees are so important and I find working them very enjoyable. You sound very much like myself. Curiosity led me to the bees. It also keeps me engaged. There will always be something new to discover with them.
I'm sorry to see a story like this one. But it does serve to open your eyes to a problem that exists even in the beekeeping business. There's always someone out there ready to take advantage of an uneducated public. Thanks for sharing this story. As painful as it was to watch, it needed to be told.
It's a shame we don't have more information. $600/ is a fair price for healthy colonies, painted new quipment, leveling and putting down gravel and block. I find it hard to believe they agreed to care for them for that price. $30-$40/mth/hive is what I hear people are charging.
I think its fair if the bees are looked after, these were left for dead. Prices are all over the place for sure especially when management is involved too. We stopped managing others folks bees and will only bring in our own now.
This is such a cool educational video. It's 3am Tuesday morning and I'm convinced I gotta get bees. =) Need to learn tons asap. Thank you so much for this video! Subbed.
"The name "foulbrood" is used to describe the bad smell associated with colonies infected with European foulbrood or American foulbrood, though not all diseased colonies have a bad odor. A beekeeper may smell a SOUR, rank, or rotting smell when they open the hive if there is a high level of infection".
This was more like fermented nectar with some bitter fall honey, not much brood left in these hives to be foul. AFB is supposed to literally smell like rotting meat
You are the first beekeeper that also uses animal dung for smoker fuel. I found horse manure even better than cow manure. It's more fibrous. I break it up into 25mm pellets. But you are right, it doesn't smell good. I made the mistake of using it in a house during a cutout, oops! Don't you just hate scammers. The empty one makes it really plain that he was one. If I was the woman, I would keep the 2 best because they obviously can survive. That smelly one is a concern.
I agree horse dung is better, we have cows on our place so we just use the resources around us. We work hard to give beekeeping a good name, I do hate those selfish beekeepers that make a quick buck at the expense of all of our reputations.
@@Karene-gj9nt AFB stands for American Foulbrood which is a bacterial disease affecting the larvae. In my state, if the state bee inspector discovers AFB in a hive, they will issue an immediate destroy order for that hive. Which involves destruction by fire including the boxes, frames and bees. I've heard of entire bee yards having to be destroyed due to total infection. It's not something any beekeeper ever wants to have happen, but fire is the only way to keep AFB from spreading. The only prevention is regular inspections by knowledgeable a beekeeper as well as a yearly inspection by a state beekeeping inspector.
So if bees make a hive in a hollow tree without people does that mean they are neglected? Lots of bees do well in hives with out humans getting involved. $600 for all that equipment is a deal.
I'm in DFW. If they're within an hour I'd like to place bees on that land if there's food enough. I'm small time about to start my third year. For the exception do the boxes need to be double? They'd probably do better in less space..... If you'll not be able to be back for ages I understand stand why you'd leave them double up. Also I noticed they didn't bother making their number on the boxes.
There is no shortage of folks looking for beekeepers in the area. This property owner is switching from bees to wildlife for their exemption. She wanted us to check the well being and put a value on the hives.
From the looks of the hives, most of them were empty before being delivered to the apiary. Depending on the time of year, both the active hives could have been swarms from elsewhere. It wouldn't surprise me if the scammer delivered 12 empty hives.
Well you know harbor freight has the 1 thousand watt inverter that will run the aculicacid treatment when you are out away from the grid . Robin Frazier
Good to know, I didn't realize it was enough. I use my 1000w inverter to keep those 20v batts charged while driving around. Do you know what the harbor freight model costs? I picked up mine on amazon for $65 and love it.
@honeybeesunlimited the feral ones that have survived a winter or two seem to be hardier than ones directly purchased from elsewhere. We have alot of beekeepers around here, they seem to be doing best in relatively isolated areas. Ours are surrounded by various woods and prarie habitat.
It may just be me, but in winter, if it's difficult for the bees, wouldn't it be good to off them warmth by covering the hives with that insulating styrofoam stuff? It couldd be removed when the weather comes back. Looks like some of these were lost due to cold and others due to mites or infections but can't the bee keepers at least protect their hives from cold winters?
If the frames and honeycomb on them are in good shape we would re-use it. Its takes a lot of honey for the bees to draw out comb. Any comb saved is better. We would want to run any of this through a freezer for 24hrs first. That will kill other pests hiding in it. Gary
I just bought 2 box of bees ... and I paid 305 $ for them no equipment.... that's a steal.... and I got mine on sale they are 189$ for one box... not a hive a loss box hive with Brute is 230$ to 250$ one box with 5 to 9 Frames...
Boxes with only undrawn foundation clearly lacked bees, the few with bees that were infected looks like he delt with his problem by passing it on. The few with bees may even been captured swarms. The equipment has value but she needs a queen and package for each empty just to preserve the comb. Bet the seller did a massive split with one frame of brood to each box to make it look good to a new person.
The guy that sold them these is notorious for selling removal bees that have not established yet, or have stablished but not re-queened. Just a bad player.
That drawn out comb I'd pay 600 for alone, 1st year beekeeper from the UK and I have big plans, waiting for drawn out comb aswell as splitting hives and making new queens takes up a lot of the Spring flow time when I could be producing honey, next year will be different but for now I gotta suck it up
Never reuse old manky drawn comb. It's a surefire way to spread brood diseases. I'd just burn all these hives and frames and start afresh. Site looks OK though. Greetings from North Wales, UK.
I'm going through the same thing. Seems that drawn comb is invaluable for fixing problems. This first year is all about turning sugar water syrup into frames of straight comb. Just cleaned out my big freezer to store the extra for next spring. I'm so ready for next spring.
Completely random question. I have a huge back yard that is completely empty, but I live in a residential area with all the homes being roughly 1/4 acre lots. Would it be allowed to have 1 hive? If so, how much. I have very very much noticed the population of bees decline in my area.
Check your city zoning laws. Usually hives are OK if you can keep them a certain distance away from neighbors, but the distance varies from city to city. To keep your hive from becoming a nuisance, make sure you provide WATER near your hive or hives. That keeps them out of the dog's water dish and neighbor's; pools.
Check local regs for sure. Gentle bees bees are fine in a small yard. My house is on a quarter acre too. I've had 4 hives easy on the lot. Dive in, start with your local bee club.
On the 3rd box you reach in and pull out a frame with your hand. If this was a real hive you would never have been able to do that. Bees never worked on that hive.
Wow that’s so sad! So much waste and was that one hive just a fake set up without all the frames and the other completely empty? That would mean she paid 1200 for empty fake hives! Could she take legal action against the seller?
@@honeybeesunlimited It's quite likely, to me the uneducated, that what you did find as a live hiv and a few live bees was probably just a coincidence of a queen and drones finding a hive to start in. I doubt there were ever true live colonies.
5 hives in I haven’t heard one box cracked. No bees have been alive in those setups in that yard. Any bees they saw where scouts and the one that was there was probably a swarm that moved in. To many scammers taking advantage of lazing or ignorant people.
Can you please let me know that putting honey into a beehive will it attract honey bees because I just started a beehive out of a Styrofoam cooler so please let me know thank you.
Honey will just get robbed out of an empty hive - it is highly unlikely it will attract a swarm. Some dark drawn comb would be better, but could get infested by wax moths.
@@jeanmartin6410All hives are made of insulation but if you want more than 3/4" pine there are synthetic boxes you can get. Poly boxes. Fibreglass. Even thicker timber. I have seen a horizontal hive design with wool in the sides.
We would have cleared it all out had they been ours, we were only there to evaluate. With that said, I still couldn't leaving the weak one without brood.
It was a scam, regardless of what may have happened later. A completely empty hive - not even any frames and some of the hives having frames that have never been drawn out are sure signs. I suspect that most or all of the hives were delivered without any bees - either starve outs or some other reason. The two active hives may well have been swarms that moved in after the hives were delivered to the site.
I know who did this, not the first time we have had to come in and help a landowner. I think the word is getting out and folks are going to better beekeepers when they need pollinators but don't want to keep themselves.
Old comb is black, it's mostly dirt at that point. It takes 5 or so years to get that way. When it gets black and heavy we cycle it out. The bees stop using it and it becomes saturated with pesticides and other chemicals.
In my experience the capped doesn't need much attention, hopefully they had enough heat. I figure if was worth the risk if any emerge, not going to hurt the other hive. Its population was about to explode.
If they had died over the winter, there would have been a lot of dead bees in the boxes. Also, the two brood boxes and frames would all have been glued together with propolis. I suspect the two hives with bees were swarms that took up residence. In other words, most likely the woman was sold 10 empty hives.
@@honeybeesunlimited I agree with @wild geraas. Even though you said you weren't there to "work the hives" as soon as you called for a brood donor frame you should have also swapped box locations so the field force would come back to the weak hive and give them an instant boost in addition to the brood frame you gave them. The drone brood should have been scrapped off to eliminate the few mites and so the hive bees don't have the extra work of cleaning out the damaged drones. The weak hive definitely should have been cut down to just the brood box, move the 2nd box on top the adjacent empty box where it won't matter. Since the strong colony was in different size box's not possible to reduce to a single box unless you can accept the wild comb build on medium frames mixed with deeps. Smaller box = less area to heat and manage = better hive when trying to save them.
@@bj8342 I wouldn't swap the hives in this instance. The weak hive would get overrun by the foragers from the strong hive and they would surely kill that queen. The strong hive would be made unnecessarily weak just when it was about to get a booming population. The weak one should be re-queened or merged if I was managing them. We have no problem with drones this time of year and wouldn't scrape away any that may still be viable. We came back and treated these for mites for the landowner since we have bees in the area too.
@@honeybeesunlimited I think i would be looking for the person whom was suppose to be taking care of them. You are right very sad for the land owner. Impossible to to prove who is at fault.
@@dennisbarney869 Its a similar story with the same players. Not the first time we've had to do this for folks. I don't understand. The keeper seems to have the right intentions, just doesn't follow through with the care.
Yes, A friend of mine ended up take the 2 survivors. Not sure if it was our intervention, but they were still kicking a few week slater. We did come back and treat those two surviving colonies for mites the next day off camera.@@davidbowden8362
That many hives in one area is not good for the bees. The competition for the polin would cause the bees to fly farther and farther. I bet most of the hives migrated away.
Nice little scam, my guess is they brought in a 3-4 frames of bees for each hive, probably wasn't even queenright, then stacked them up like they were big double deeps and they died from too much space, no food, robbing and neglect. But, that first month if looked at by the owner, you would have seen activity. The scammers took that money and ran.
We have some extremely defensive bees in our area. I don't mind suiting up when I don't know the bees. Even with one viable hive. Just me, been lit up more times than I care to for no good rerason.
Are all you doing is evaluating? Those bees if cared for can be split and fill up some of those empty boxes, possibly fill all those deadouts and give this bee sanctuary some life. Clean up those hives and get it going. If you are commercial, why not offer to care for new bee yards on different lands? you keep the bees and run a good sized yard, and profit from it. Land owner gets to have their tax deduction and knowledge that the bees are pollenating the local area.
We are just evaluating this yard. The home owner decided to convert this property to wildlife for the exemption. She wanted to sell these. We made a fair offer for the viable colony, but she want to try and find another buyer, we aren’t close to retail. We have been hired to set up sanctuaries and maintain them at two of her other properties.
The main problem as I see it is the state offering tax exemptions for having bees on the land, this encourages people to just buy hives from absolutely anywhere, therefore yes, scammers will be buzzing around in numbers. As you rightly point out, buyers will just pick a seller at random and without a clue as to hive maintenance, so who's to blame, state, buyer or scammer?
That is not a problem, the law is very successful and the state has a blanket of bees for all ag. Don't dismiss a good thing because of a bad actor. We love bees any laws that will encourage more bees and more beekeeping is a good thin in our world.
@@honeybeesunlimited well hopefully his bad name will get around enough that people won’t deal with him anymore, a lot of people spend their entire life doing and trying to do the right thing and the world could use a little less greed and sloppiness and more decency and honesty, you are doing a good thing giving honest assessments
Camera person is so annoying! Stop trying to help in the hives and just record. @3:41 you carelessly chopped a bee in half with your hive tool. Just chill and film.
Thought provoking video it’s not clear if there’s any hope for the future of this bunch of bee’s. The unsuspecting land owner has been taken to the cleaner’s so to speak maybe they can learn from this mistake. I learned something new. It’s not nice to see shameless behavior since the bee’s are innocent pawns.
As keepers we are ethically bound to do our best. This guy did it for show and a short buck. Keep them responsibly and you get paid long term. I don't understand folks that always take shortcuts.
For our operation, one of the hives would have been with something. Not sure how to find that out though without a thorough inspection. Thanks for watching
@@honeybeesunlimited yes I grew up on a farm my father had bees back then mites and things where not a problem, farm went and I went navy six yrs, I started to learn and my biggest self learn lesson was mites, but I studied,to learn why I did because I love bees
So im going to stop you right there, you posted this video in the fall. If you have any experience and you yourself stated "dead winter cluster" if this lady has not maintained her colonies im assuming for almost a year and a half without mite treatments, supplemental feddings etc and for you to say that this lady got jipped and needs to buy bees from a reputable seller i would just laugh at you if i was standing next to you. If anything the person to blame is the lady thst bought them. I would have been flat out honest with her as said if you dont want to maintain your animals then you shouldn't have them. Very shallow video on your part man.
We had no ideal what we were going to find. This was posted last winter. Not sure why you think it was a fall video. She is not a beekeeping, she never agreed to take care of them. The keeper that was responsible stops showing up. We he the call to investigate. I didn’t like what we found either, but it no lie.
lol,, I came to the comments to see if I was the only one who thought the sound was terrible,, I could hardly hear what was being said, I had to keep going back to listen over & over ,even with headphones on,,, If you wanna do video's to upload here on YT, it would do him well to get those mics
The woman should have sorted this long before these hives got in this state. It's not the maintenance man's fault. If he wasn't turning up she should have acted sooner. This is a disgrace. And now she's switching to the environment. I hope she does a better job at that.
I don’t believe that we should honor criminals like this with the name beekeeper! Scoundrel and miscreant is a better term for them! They should be tracked down and prosecuted for theft by fraud!
We have a need for speed, hard to change habits for these videos. I will try and do better. Maybe if we did a better job teaching folks how to get in and out of a hive they would actually inspect more.
